MORNING KOMBAT WITH LUKE THOMAS AND BRIAN CAMPBELL - 5 Things To LOVE About Lomachenko-Lopez + Teofimo promises KO in Interview

Episode Date: October 13, 2020

Brian Campbell give you 5 reasons to LOVE Vasiliy Lomachenko's title unification bout vs. Teofimo Lopez Jr. this saturday. PLUS BC sat down with Teofimo Lopez Jr. to preview his Lightweight title unification bout vs. Vasiliy Lomachenko. Is it true that Lomachenko took a pay cut so Lopez could get the right amount of money? What really happened when his dad confronted Vasiliy Lomachenko? What does he have to say to the people who are saying Lomachenko is to much for him? --------------------------------- 'Morning Kombat’ is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Castbox, Google Podcasts, Bullhorn and wherever else you listen to podcasts.    For more Combat Sports coverage subscribe here: youtube.com/MorningKombat   Follow our hosts on Twitter: @BCampbellCBS, @lthomasnews, @MorningKombat    For Morning Kombat gear visit: store.sho.com   Follow our hosts on Instagram: @BrianCampbell, @lukethomasnews, @MorningKombat  To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh yeah, bonus time on the MK, it's your boy the Brian Campbell. One half of your morning combat duo checking in during a big boxing fight week. Vasily Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez Jr. this Saturday, all four lightweight titles on the line. So what do we have for you today? It's a little bit of double bonus action. I'm going to give you five reasons to love this fight. If you don't know much about it, consider this your full primer, your cliff notes, whatever you want to say. And then after that, we got to chat with the takeover himself.

Teo Fimo, just 23 years old. Lopez stopping by the show. He's brash. He's humble at the same time. He's going to tell you why he's going to win, why he's going to knock out Vasily Lomachenko and why they just don't get along, where that origin is. A very interesting chat with a young fighter on the verge of really that bursting out.

He just needs that big win. He has this huge opportunity against the pound for pound king one of the best in the game in lomachenko so why don't you buckle and get ready get a little mk in your ear hole all right get a little on you if you can it's uh it's one half of the duo it's your boy bc coming at you right now hey enjoy it all right why not right hello there morning combat coming at you a little bonus time video in the sport of boxing. I am Brian Campbell, one half of your MK duo. And as my typical cohort, Luke Thomas, would tell you during our Monday, Wednesday, Friday live shows,

11 a.m. Eastern every single week, please tip your waitresses. Click that subscribe button. Like the video. Say something nice underneath. Maybe talk about how much you love Jay, the producer, all that, all them good stuff right there. Why am I coming at you today? Because it's a big fight week, okay? We know we got Habib and company on the horizon next week, a little Korean zombie action against Ortega and UFC this week.

But this Saturday on ESPN, it's big-time boxing in a big way when Vasily Lomachenko and unbeaten Teofimo Lopez Jr. collide for all four lightweight titles in a fight that you should really care about. Look, I'm not naive to the fan base here. We do some fun boxing in morning combat. We got the MK Boxing Hard hardcore spinoff show with myself and rave bartholomew but the crowd the fan base here most of you guys it's on the mma side no

surprise no big deal either way look our friend luke thomas recent cbs sports acquisition does bring a large library of fanatics with him including the the many that he's blocked on twitter i might add but mma fan crossover sports fan casual mainstream fan or not, look, Lomachenko Lopez has the potential to be that fight that sort of you should care about coming in. And if you don't and you happen to stumble into it Saturday night when they broadcast this from the bubble there at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas, it's, you know, more or less the best fight you can make in boxing in 2020 outside of what we saw in the heavyweight division.

Tyson Fury, Deontay Wilder, two earlier this year was certainly a big deal. If they do the third one this year, it could be massive. We know next year Tyson Fury wants Anthony Joshua in a pair of fights. That would be massive. There's always sexy fights you can make at welterweight, but this fight at 135, Lomachenko, Lopez uh it's good it's real good in fact and uh to mirror a story i have out on cbs sports this week i'm here to tell you five reasons why you should love this fight why you should care about this fight why loma chanko lopez truly does matter this saturday

so let's kick it right off the top. Number one, everything about this fight, Lomachenko Lopez seems to challenge typical boxing stereotypes. And what I mean by that is this. Boxing's a wild game. It's the Wild West of business out there. It's not under one roof like the UFC as MMA's leading promotion with all that control over the matchmaking, over everything. Boxing is too many cooks in the kitchen more often than not,

so it's sometimes tough to make these fights that truly matters. It so happens that Lomacheco and Lopez happen to be under the same network, ESPN, and the same promoter under top rank, but there were some really cool things that went into this fight taking place Saturday that you don't normally see. First and foremost, shout out to ESPN. This is a pay-per-view caliber and worthy fight that easily could have been on there just as much as it easily could have been on the old plus there for five bucks a month. Instead, ESPN finding a primetime window here Saturday night and putting

it on real ESPN regular television. That is such a plus to the health of the sport, the brand potential of both fighters. You know, ESPN top ranks coverage in general, you tip the cat to that. Also, you look even further into this matchup. It's a dare to be great situation for Teofimo Lopez. Top to bottom, that is the thing I care about the most. I respect and love the fighters who put their life on the line, who entertain us in such a savage way. But in boxing, because the business structure is so broken, you can have padded

records. You can avoid big names and not really be forced to fight them. These are two guys who are going after what could end up being the most dangerous, toughest matchup of their prospective resumes. And they're kind of going out of their way to make this happen. And you have 15 pro fights apiece for both these guys. Now, that's far different when you compare them. Lomachenko, 32 years old, two-time Olympic gold medalist from the Ukraine, arguably the greatest amateur in history. He's had an insane 15-fight pro career, fought for a world title

and lost a controversial decision in his second pro fight won a world title at featherweight in his third pro fight won a second world title at 130 and like his seventh pro fight he's now a three division champion and he's going in there against a young kid who really could have next in this sport we're gonna find that out but for lopez he's just 23 like just recently turned 23 he's's 15-0, but outside of that victory over Richard Comey last year to gain that IBF title that he's going to bring into this fight at lightweight, he doesn't have the track record of the killers, of the champions, of the big names.

He's looked absolutely fantastic blowing guys away that in some ways he should blow away, and he did it in emphatic fashion with one sort of you know highlight reel knockout after another but he's going into a fight very early in his rise that really could make him something massive or could set him back because Lomachenko has been atop this pound for pound mythical rankings you know for a while now and nobody seems to have that level of craft and wizardry and expertise. And Lopez just throwing himself

right into the middle of that. That doesn't typically happen like this in boxing. So you love that. And there's also the report out there that Lomachenko took less money. You got the report that ESPN threw more money in to get it on regular ESPN, which shout out to Disney there, well done.

But there's that report that there was trouble at the negotiation table. Lopez needed and wanted more money. And Lomachenko said, I'll take less to make this happen now. Is that true? You hear reports. We did have Teofimo Lopez Jr.

on morning combat this week. I want you to check out that interview. He says, no, that's apocryphal. That did not happen. I wouldn't take that level of charity from another man. Either way,

they all came together and made this happen, whether they had to take less. And you know, they certainly did, given there's not a live gate. Yes, top rank will have, I believe the number is around 250 spectators. They're trying to give away free tickets to first responders in Las Vegas. Tip of the cap to that as we're starting to mix some fans in and figure this whole thing out. But you know, there's no live gate to pay these guys. They're both saying, I want and need this fight on my resume this calendar year. Let's make it. I know in MMA and UFC, it's automatic. It ain't that way in the box game.

So shout out to everybody right there. Number two reason why I love this fight so much. Lomachenko, I said, 32 years old, maybe your pound for pound king, three division champion. He's never faced anybody as dangerous as Lopez in this matchup and that is saying a lot because Lomachenko always faces the best he wanted to fight for a world title in his pro debut but Bob Arum at top rank couldn't make it happen he had to settle for his second fight when he kind of got robbed on the cards against Orlando Salido beat Gary Russell Jr.

who's a featherweight champion now in his his third pro fight. He's faced top-shelf competition. But here's an interesting element about what makes this matchup so good. Lomachenko was doing just fine at 126, 130, blowing people away. In fact, he got that NoMaschenko nickname because four straight opponents quit on their stool rather than come out against him. But he stopped being able to get those big names because of how dangerous he was. So he moved up to lightweight 135, which we found out through four fights. It's 4-0, four big title wins in defenses, but we found that this is Lomachenko's ceiling physically.

He got dropped by Jorge Linares with a big counter right hand in their fantastic 12-round fight. Whether it was Luke Campbell in his most recent title defense or whether it was Luke Campbell in his most recent title defense, or whether it was Jose Pedraza, the sniper. Look at this weight class. He can be hit. He can be hurt a little bit. He's a small man in there doing incredible things. Very similar to when we saw Manny Pacquiao rise up dramatically in weight. He's going in there against the toughest fighter today.

No, look, he's faced big punchers, Nicholas Walters, who he made quit. But this is 135. This is a division maybe physically over Lomachenko's head. And he's going in there against an absolute athletic, powerful stud in Lopez. I know he's just 23. I know he hasn't, you know, the proof hasn't been in the put in long enough, as Floyd would say. But what we have seen is an incredible ability to appear out of nowhere, land the leaping left hooks that only a Roy Jones Jr. had been able to consistently do, and draw comparisons to Roy Jones Jr. by none other than Roy Jones Jr.

So you're talking about an explosive guy in Lopez who can do the unorthodox, do the unexpected, can finish you. There's a legitimate threat here for Lomachenko. Yes, he's rightfully the betting favorite. Yes, there's scenarios in your head in which you can envision him teaching Lopez a boxing lesson in winning this fight by decision, but there's not going to be a second of this fight where it's not tense and dramatic knowing that it can be ended with one punch. This is a legit tough ass test. If Lomachenko wins it, you never put it past him if he's going to ever try to rise in weight again

or how many more fights he's going to take on. But this will be a giant sort of cornerstone in this chapter of his short pro career. It would be absolutely incredible. Full respect again for both guys taking the challenge here. But let's not downplay the danger for Lomachenko entering this. Number three, what I love most about Lomachenko Lopez it's that Teofimo uh a victory here for him we really could see the the launching of boxing's next big crossover star and you you know you hear that and like they call on me as Luke Thomas would say it's actually Luke Thomas

calling me um look Lopez is 23 but he can talk and he can talk in terms of selling himself and selling fights whether he's talking trash and he can do that and his dad his wild dad and trainer teofimo senior uh seems to get him into a lot of trouble in fact the backstory is that teofimo senior kind of verbally accosted lomachenko two years ago before a fight and said my son's gonna kick your ass and knock you out and And now it was kind of up to Lopez to take on that challenge. And he did, but Lopez could be a star, has that flashy style, does the one-punch knockouts, does the Fortnite dances afterwards, which certainly appeal to the kids, not the old middle-aged dads like me.

But, you know, has a firm grip at 23 years old on the youthful culture. His Hispanic is, has a father from Honduras, country roots there, but as a New York city born and bred kid certainly appeals to different fan bases there. He can talk, but he's got that style that is just fun in the ring. He's just turned 23. He's mature seemingly beyond his years in a lot of ways, but he's got a crazy backstory family wise life wise to get to this point if he beats the pound for pound king and if he's going to do

that you may have to knock him out if he knocks out vasily lomachenko and is your undisputed lightweight champion of the world and we know he's only going to rise up in weight this may for all we know be his last fight at lightweight as he's growing very fast you're talking about a marketable future star that is going to have the type of highlight wins that it's going to be hard to avoid. Again, shout out to ESPN for putting this fight on the old free TV there. This could be a huge breakout performance for him. He can talk it.

He'll do the backflip afterwards. He really can win your heart over. Still definitely a potential uphill climb, but more on that in the matchup to come. Number four about what I love most about Lomachenko Lopez is there's a rare undisputed championship fight, in a way. Now, let me say that so you can understand, because it's impossible to understand. Boxing is, as Paulie Malinowski once said, is full of shit. I used to love this sport.

It is, and I still love this sport. It's full of crap in a lot of ways. There are too many titles, okay? The WBA has got 18 titles per 17 weight classes you know that it's a bunch of bs but under this system uh i can't get no justice under this system that's a little mark for death soundtrack shout out there steven seagal right there um Luke, you're coming for me. You're coming for me. All right. All right. So here's the excellent and ridiculous part about this.

We recognize the four belt system in this modern era of the last 15, 20 years. WBA, WBC, WBO, IBF. All four of them are imperfect in range in their decision-making, anywhere from corrupt to ridiculous and in between. But we tend to recognize that there's four major belts per 17 divisions here. At lightweight at 135 pounds, Lomachenko, in theory, has three of them, WBO, WBA, WBC. And Lopez, after knocking out Richard Comey late last year, has the IBF.

Four titles at stake, a rare situation in modern boxing to get an undisputed champion. We saw Terrence Crawford do it at 140 pounds a couple years back. Alexander Usyk do it at cruiserweight just a year and a half ago. We've seen it on the women's side twice recently. Bernard Hopkins and Jermaine Taylor did that middleweight back in the day, but it's very rare. That's the short list right there, more or less, unless I forgot somebody.

Now, why you put the asterisk on it in this case is the WBC did some shenanigans last year. Normally, they are fairly solid. WBA is the one you got to watch out for, but BC was like, not this BC, the WBC was basically like, Lomachenko's so great, we're going to make him our franchise champion, which is really BS for he's such a big star. We don't want to hold him to any mandatories. He can kind of do what he wants, and it allows us to create a second WBC title per division that this happens in. So Devin Haney, who is a fantastic lightweight prospect, unbeaten, fights on his own, incredible talent.

He got the WBC regular title without really deserving it, and Lomachenko's your franchise champion and I know this is a bunch of BS for you to deal with this is what we deal with in boxing all the time it's non-transferable which means Lomachenko can lose the distinction of super champion by losing against Lopez but in theory Lopez can't beat him to become the WBC champion since the franchise champion is not transferable. I can get a better look at a T-bone steak by sticking my head up the butcher's ass, but I'd rather take his word. No, it's got to be your bowl, actually.

So things have changed because top rank appealed to the WBC and said, hey, look, if Lopez wins, he should be the undisputed champion. I know that Haney's got the WBC belt, but he should be the four-belt recognized undisputed champion. And you know what Mauricio Suleiman in the WBC said? Yeah, sure, it works for us, right? Who cares? It's a crap show.

Boxing's full of shit. I used to love this sport. Thank you, Paulie Malignaggi. Yeah, so it is and it isn't, but at the end of the day, it's rare when you get all four belts in one fight. Fighters have a hard time doing that because everybody's tied to a specific network.

It's almost like having American and National League only there's three or four of them. And on top of that, it doesn't seem like the alphabet organizations tend to love that. They want their champions to be able to defend as much as possible why because they get a large sanctioning fee that each fighter has to pay to wear their belt and defend it it's not a good system guys it's broken but under this

broken system where we rarely get justice we get a four belt championship fight on saturday and again that don't happen all too often i'll take it it. I love it. Give it to me. And number five on why Lomachenko Lopez is a sneaky great fight. And it's actually not sneaky at all. It's a great fight on Saturday. Let's be real. You have no idea who's going to win. You don't. And if you're a hardcore and you're watching this and thank you, shout out to all my old school ITC, SOC, the ropes fans, all the great listeners who have backed Rafe and I for years, Rafe Bartholomew and myself. None of you know how this is going to end, and that's what I love about it. On paper, it's not really a 50-50 fight.

Lomachenko is the betting favorite, and he should be with that experience level. But whether you are more inclined to believe that Lomachenko avoids the power and ultimately maybe exposes Lopez to a degree and just outclasses him and wins a decision, or you're more inclined to believe that Lomachenko avoids the power and ultimately maybe exposes Lopez to a degree and just outclasses him and wins a decision, or you're more inclined to believe the opposite, that this is a bad time for Lomachenko to be fighting this brash kid who's going to come in there guns blazing and may be able to catch and stop him. Either way, I don't think you're all that confident in this. And it should be automatic at the highest level that every big fight in a title fight and

this is again a four belt kind of asterisk maybe almost sorry wbc oh but thank you again wbc uh type of fight that it should be 50 50 but in boxing it it isn't always in fact rarely is so we celebrate that fact this is a real i don't know what this fight is going to look like kind of fight and it goes beyond the fact that they're so evenly matched in their own specific ways. It goes deeper. Lomachenko and Lopez are unorthodox in what they do. So Lomachenko is a Southpaw.

He's a boxer, not a big puncher. He can, he can knock you out with punches. You don't see coming usually after, you know, wearing you down for a while, but he is a wizard.

The footwork's out of control the the angles are just bizarre and everything about him is fresh and new and next level and and the flurries and just i mean he's a student of the game the way he trains he trains his mind just as much as his body uh it's incredible he's used to doing that against traditional orthodox come forward jab overhand punch guys and he dances circles around them because they don't train what lomachenko does right it's the ukrainian amateur system it's his dad anatoly the the mastermind behind that same system by the way that produced alexander usik alexander uh vasdik uh you know sergey derivinchenko all these great ukrainian champions of recent

years um he's used to doing that against traditional guys. Lopez is anything but traditional. And really, Lopez, who's in some ways this Roy Jones clone, but maybe with more natural power, he's used to just being a little bit abnormal. Guys come at him straight ahead, he's leaping from crazy angles and knocking them out. When you put two wacky and wild styles against each other,

you just don't know what it's going to look like. You don't know which guy is going to take on the persona of I'm the jabber. In this case, I'll be the traditional come forward guy, and you play the counterpuncher role. We may not see roles in this one. You'd have to believe that Lomachenko, if he's going to win, it's going to be by decision. So he's going to have to be the busier guy.

We know that coming in. We know that if Lopez is going to win, it's more than likely to happen by knockout. So maybe he's going to be more of the natural counterpuncher. But again, when you take just oddball styles, genius styles, styles you can't replicate in camp, and put them in there against each other, it's special. And it really means we don't know what this looks like, who this you really don't and i love that about this matchup i felt it from day one your your your impulse wants to tell you that it's too much too soon for lopez

and that you know lomachenko is gonna gonna figure out how to dance around him but when you really think about it you can't really figure lopez out look he's had one bad night at the office right it was two fights ago it was against the the Japanese fighter. Forgive me. Nakatani, I think was his name. But there were, it was a, it was a, not a lifeless decision, but you know, he got outboxed at times. Lopez won the fight, but he didn't look great doing it. But what we found out later is, you know, there's all kinds of backroom drama in his family. His dad's out of control in the corner. His family hates his wife. It's almost like a young Kobe Bryant situation here.

And there was some major drama going on leading up to his ring walk. In fact, during, he told me one time, the walk to the ring that night, it was all kinds of crazy. So that clouded, is Lopez who we really think he is? Only then he goes out there against tough ass IBF champion Richard Comey last year and flattens it. And you're like, oh, okay, that was, you know, one bad night at the office. Now, can he do that on this level against a pound for pound genius and all time great and Lomachenko? I don't know, but I don't know that you can easily count

him out. That power is for real. Lomachenko is only 32, but keep in mind, he employs a style. Now, look, Manny Pacquiao's a freak. I don't know how he's still this fast and explosive. But most guys don't carry that into their 30s, deep into their 30s. Most guys in the smaller weight classes peter out earlier when they rely on speed and athleticism. That's what Lomachenko does. There are some hipsters of the hardcore boxing game

that are going to tell you, look at his recent lightweight fights. He's kind of getting old a little bit before our eyes. Now, I don't subscribe to that. I think he's just in a heavier division and he fought a great fighter in Linares who dropped him, right? Other guys had moments against him, but maybe part of that is true. Maybe he's not the same. And maybe Lopez isn't as great as his one-punch KOs against a rock-hard, mighty Mason Maynard may suggest. But these partial truths are going to come together and make an interesting soup on Saturday night. And it could end with Lopez shocking us

and knocking him out and winning it and really starting a new era in a lot of ways in this sport, potentially. And that's a loaded statement, but I do believe he is that. Look, Lopez has a makeup to him that's unnatural, certainly for his age. But read the Mark Kriegel ESPN.com backstory, Baby Mama drama stories, and you'll see Lopez didn't have a normal upbringing in life. And his ability to handle stress, expectations, his dad's trash talk, and live up to it has been incredible up to this point. I'm not going to put it past him that he can't win this fight on Saturday.

I really don't know who's going to win or what it looks like. And that's as great as it gets in boxing. And, oh, by the way, this is not a pay-per-view, even though it's a pay-per-view level fight. They're both daring to be great. Four titles are kind of at stake. Boxing. You did us good here on this night.

Shout out to our grandpa there, Bob Arum for making it happen. Shout out to both fighters for wanting it. Shout out to this MK army that we are building. Hopefully, uh, even the MMA fans will check this out this weekend. A true, uh, sort of potential crossover type fight. That's going to produce somebody with maybe the biggest win of their career, whether it's Lomachenko or Lopez, very much looking forward to it.

Look, here's the deal. You already know. MK's taking over morning combat. Nobody does it. Nobody does it like us. Nobody, nobody does this crossover collaboration with this type of formula of elite-level boxing breakdowns, elite-level mixed martial arts.

Who else can balance the fun and games with the legitimate analysis? Who else has Luke Thomas getting on you about your COVID thoughts? Who else has your boy BC bringing you back to the 90s? So not only do we have this great show, but CBS and Showtime put their heads together. We're in like this rocket ship's about to take off and we want to be the ones filling it with fuel. Okay. We want to be the ones, you know, we want to be the label that pays me.

So they said, why don't we do this three days a week live? And then we said, Hey, why don't we also, you know, drop you a little recap after the big fights. I don't know if you guys remember after the last UFC pay-per-view Luke hit you up with a little appetizer on Sunday that did big ratings. Then we come back Monday morning with the big one, the real deal in your face. But then again, that wasn't enough to completely satiate what we know your appetite and hunger could be, should be, would be, will be for MK. So in addition to Monday, Wednesday, Friday live, in addition to the Saturday post-fight sort of

big Sunday reactions, we had so much killer in-between stuff coming your way. Tuesday, Thursday, all week. We had interviews this week with Loma Chanko interviews with Lopez on the boxing side we got the boxing hardcore show with Rafe Bartholomew and myself kind of going deep on some of these topics it doesn't get touched in the regular MK we got Luke Thomas's morning combat dissected show me another person outside of Dan Hardy who does great work on those UFC shows that can get you this deep into the technique and go behind the music there. Like it's a VH1 Motley Crue there showing you the ins and outs. And then you got your Luke Thomas Q and a live chat, you know, and that's just the beginning. Okay. Luke and I have some plans to,

uh, tentatively get together again in the next month, little spoiler alert there and, uh, provide some fresh and fun top content. I know you guys like the room service diaries. We threw it out. We threw out the wall. We had a can of paint. We put fluids in the paint. We stirred the paint can up. We threw it at the wall, and we looked at each other and said,

Luke, I hope we don't get fired because I think that's something right there. And you guys, you know, you looked at the art piece. You said, is that a dog? Is that a dog right there? You said, this is brilliant, and that's really what this show is all about all right are we art is art art you know i don't know but you know thank you for patronizing us thank you for being a patron okay uh get your merch at show.store.com for morning combat um Look also, this is like just the beginning. This is like comfy dad clothes,

right? You got the sweatshirt. My wife loves the hoodie. You got the hat, the tumbler, all that stuff. What we have for 2.0, I've seen a little mock-up is,

is pretty, pretty damn slick stuff coming out there. So yeah, that's the deal here. Enjoy the fight this Saturday. All that good stuff. Thank you. Thank you for being along with us on this journey.

Okay. We're going to the moon and back and we need as many people as we can. No, nobody, nobody show does it like this. Okay. It's, it's MK all day,

nearly every day. And it's your boy BC signing out with the only two words that can truly end a show. We out. All right. With our five reasons to love this great fight behind us, why don't we get into the interview time? It's Teofimo right now, okay?

It's a takeover. It's going to happen right now. Let's throw to it. Yes. Enjoy. You better believe on Morning Combat, the week of the biggest fight of the boxing calendar year, we're going to get the star of the show. of the boxing calendar year. We're going to get

the star of the show. The takeover is here. Teo Fimo Lopez Jr., unbeaten 23, your IBF lightweight champion. Just, I don't know, four or five sleeps away from Vasily Lomachenko in Las Vegas. Teo, fired the heck up. That's me talking. What's going on inside of you just out from the biggest fight of your career? I got to say, that was like the best intro for someone to say for me. the heck up. That's me talking. What's going on inside of you just out from the biggest fight of your career? I gotta say that was like the best intro for someone to say for me. I gotta say thank you. Thank you, Campbell. Hey, I gotta say, man, I'm hyped, you know, fight week. And that's just what it comes to, man, the takeover. And man, I'm excited. I can't wait for this, man. We are, what are we, T-minus five days away so um you know it's it's the time man

it's the time of of every boxing fan it's the time for all sports to just tune in october 17th live on espn you don't want to pay-per-view level fight could easily be we're getting it on regular espn um now look i know you don't love vasily lomachenko but there's reports that he took less money to make this fight happen, and you certainly have to shout out the folks at ESPN for putting it on regular cable. Do you give that man the respect for bending at the financial table to get you in there? What? That's what I hear.

That's what I hear, bro. All right? What you hear, that's called rumors, my friend that is rumors no that was all false information nothing was ever um taken out of his purse or out of his fight check financially nothing um i'm not the type of man to take that i won't take that my ego's too big when it comes to stuff like that um and just to allow someone like uh loma chanko who i personally do not like to uh be that announced and now i won't take it so um the true story to it um going back and forth with bob am um espn and with my manager david mcwarder we were discussing back and forth and espn you know came in and they gave us um you know what we what we thought was

all right you know not the best but just all. You know, and that's what happened, man. So for everyone else thinking about Loma giving me a, you know, but the thing that makes me laugh is that they promote the shit out of that. But they can't promote the shit out of this fight. We need to promote the shit out of the fight. So let's get well, let's get right into it. So look, Teo, here's why us hardcores, even the casuals, love this. It's certainly a blockbuster fight. Four titles at stake in the lightweight division. But it's like a grudge match at the same time. And you know we get fired up for it.

It's like catnip to us. The hate seems to be real. Can you give us the origin? I mean, I know the story, but I'm not sure everybody else does. Your dad kind of almost accosted Vasily Lomachenko as he was on the way to a different fight, walking to the ring. What happened here? So it was back in 2018 where it got real controversial, kind of, I would have to say,

like, kind of like it just got real intense. I wasn't there during that time. I was getting ready for it. I was doing my weight cut, so I was working out. But people were blowing me up, calling me, yo, your father just like went off on Loma. And I was laughing. I'm laughing. I'm like, I wonder why though, you know, my father's the type, man, I guess that it's that New York in him. If he got something to say, he's just going to say it, you know, straight up and he's not going to hold anything back to it. One thing, that's one of my traits that I love about him, despite how people may feel about it, he just doesn't care.

And so that night, I think it was, he went up to Loma, gave him his hand, shook his hand, you know, and I guess Loma gave him like a dirty look and kind of was just like, why are you trying to give me your hand type of feeling. And my father just, he was like, man. And he just started cursing. He was like, my son is going to knock you out. My son is going to kill you. We're going to take over this show. And that was the night when I fought Mason Menard.

Mason Menard. And, you know, I did take over the show. Anyone that has not seen that one-punch KO in the first round there of rock-hard, mighty Mason Menard, please check that out. Here's what I love about your dad, who's also your trainer, Teofimo Sr. there, his chutzpah. It's the fact that you weren't like an established champion at that point. You're still a rising guy that was trying to make a name for himself.

Had been unproven. Your dad was kind of talking all that stuff and sort of putting a bounty over your head. You got a lot to live up to it. You have each step of the way, but you know the narratives entering this fight that even though you now have the IBF belt, you beat Richard Comey, you're climbing, you're only 15 fights into your career. You just turned 23.

How do you respond to those handicapped in this fight saying, too much too soon man you're going up against the pound for pound king right now i'm built different man i'm just i'm one of those that are just different i step up to the plate and it always uh it's always in my favor you know that just comes with a lot of hard work a lot of sacrifices that i've made throughout my career uh 18 years in you know and and and still counting, you know, so that comes with all that, man, just the mentality part, and just the fact that I walk by faith, man, you know, and I live by it, so everything that I do is honestly through God, and He always steers me in the right way,

you know, my time is now, and that's what I believe, and come October 17th, you know, we're more than ready, man, More than ready. I'm excited. Probably more excited than all you fans, honestly, man. And just to be back in the boxing world, to be back in my world and to feel at home again, definitely is going to be one of my things that I miss the most. I don't know if you're more excited than me. This is what I call a shadow box fight. If you stand up just voluntarily throwing punches when you think about this fight, you know it's a big one. You know it's for real, and that's certainly what we have here. When you look at this fight from an X's and O's standpoint, this is what I think what's cool about it, is Lomachenko's a wizard. We all know that. Great footwork,

angles, all that. But he typically does that against standard boxer, puncher, orthodox type fighters. You are anything but standard or orthodox. You're athletic. You come from different angles. What is this fight going to look like? Because I can't see it being a simple jab and cover sort of back and forth between, again, traditional boxers. Man, that's the thing, man.

I think that's what everybody's waiting for, just to see what we've all seen, what Loma does, but no one has really seen what I can do. You know, everybody just sees me as whether a one-punch man or whatnot, you know, someone that will make come forward and, you know, any of them, any of these hands right here will just put you to sleep. So, you know, but there's more to that. There's more to Teofimo than that, you know, and I can't wait to showcase that.

You know, it's going to be a great fight entertaining fight very technical i believe and at the same time but it's just also um it's bad blood so you're definitely going to see um lights you're going to see lights and fire man come that night you're definitely going to see uh fireworks and um it's just going to be one of those fights where it is fight of the year without even being us in the ring yet. So I think everybody needs to definitely tune in. This isn't just promoting it. This is the truth, and this is how we are, and this is how I feel. You know, and then afterwards, you know, we see what happens.

All right. Well, look, Lemachenko, like I mentioned, been really at the top of the PofferCon ranking. You guys really – you guys really, man, you guys really – I got to give it to y'all, though. I got to give it to y'all, though. I got to give it to y'all. For what? Just tune in October 17th.

That's for what? Okay. Well, look, what I was going to say is that, you know, Lomachenko's great. Let's give him his respect. He does things that up that you can't do. No, I'm not going to take – I won't take anything from the man. Trust me, I won't take anything away from the man. He's made his accomplishments.

He's done what he has done. You definitely got to take your hat off to the man for for achieving those goals at such a early time you know uh with only 15 fights just as much as I have um but for him he had a faster route due to the fact that he was a two-time olympic gold medalist it gave him that that opportunity you know in showcasing the amateurs why not you know so um obviously for myself I had to work my way, but the fact that I did it within these 15 fights and now we're facing each other, you know, it won't, there's not a better time than this. Well, that's really what I was going to get into saying, look, he's great. His track record speaks for itself, but he went up to 135 a few years back to chase big fights, and you could argue that given his size, given his age at 32,

still in his prime, but crossing over to a certain degree, this is a dangerous division for him. We saw him get dropped by Jorge Linares in a great fight with one punch. We saw Pedraza have moments against him. The whole idea is, okay, it's his experience against your youth, but where does your power fit into this equation do you believe after seeing him during his lightweight run that he's going to be able to handle your punching power in this fight we gotta wait and see i i give them i give every

fighter things that i want them to feel you know there's times where with the comey uh when i threw some check hooks at him it wasn't a hard check hook it was just a nice touch-up just to see how he reacts to it, you know, and I followed up with it, you know, just to see the reactions to a lot of things. So we'll have to wait and see. I got to see what he can and can't handle, you know, and then we'll go off with that. I don't think that, you know, I don't underestimate no fighter

and no man. We don't know, you know, but I will find out and I will know come October 17th when we're in that ring. You know, so I don't underestimate what he can and can't handle, but I'm just going to do everything that I can to come out victorious and make that outcome. I don't, I'm a strong fighter, of course, you know, and I have power in both hands. We all know that. It's just see what he can and can't handle.

We get a lot of MMA fans watching the morning combat show here on CBS and Showtime, and I've made the comparison before. If you're looking at Lopez Lomachenko, it's almost like when Conor McGregor was rising up and went in there against Jose Aldo for the featherweight title. You're in that position where if you win, you're going to kick down the door of this sport, and with the audience you'll probably get on ESPN, have a chance to really become an overnight sensation and a star

beyond boxing. How much is that on your mind? You don't want to put the cart before the horse, but you believe in yourself. What does Sunday look like? It's got to be a day and night scenario. If you win this. Um, I take every day, day by day. And I live by that, you know, so one day at a time, one fight at a time, we see what happens afterwards. You know what I mean? The hard work will show, and it will pay off come October 17th. My whole objective is to do what I know best and go out there and entertain the fans. That's what it comes back to, and it's always, always that.

Teofimo, that's what you're going to get from me is the love and admiration to all the fans out there. And you guys wouldn't be getting fights like this or the backflips or the celebrations if it wasn't for you guys. You guys definitely motivate me in every way. And for Sunday, man, we see what happens. We definitely see what happens. You know, I'll probably be knocked out sleeping, you know, going to bed and waking up and be like, damn, this really did happen, huh? It really did, indeed. Just 23 years old.

I don't know how you hold it together. At 23 years old, I was probably in a basement doing some things you shouldn't be rocking out. You're on top of the world about to face basically the pound-for-pound king at this point. You said that you're different. But you've had to juggle a lot of craziness in a young career. I don't say this for sensationalism. You said that you're different, but you've had to juggle a lot of craziness in a young career. I don't say this for sensationalism. You've had family drama that it sometimes almost seemed to inject and infect some of your fights.

Where are we at right now in terms of a peaceful, normal training camp building into the biggest fight of your career? I think for everybody in combat sports or just in sports in general, I mean, there's never really that peaceful, calm, relaxation moments, you know, especially when we get close to a fight time or close to competition, you know, in general. I think there's always something going on, you know what I mean? But it's also just about the fact that you got to tune those things out at a certain period of time. And I've learned that throughout my years and I learned that through certain fights now, you know, and that just comes with the experience. That comes with time, you know. So time is key. Time is definitely something that I take advantage of,

but also I understand and I live by. So when it comes to it, you know, mentally, I'm there. I'm good. I'm ready. Physically, we're more than ready. And emotionally, man, we there. I'm very I'm good I'm ready physically we're more than ready and um emotionally man um we there I'm very happy man there's nothing going on at these moments and thankfully you know and if there is you guys won't see it yeah yeah let's keep that let's keep that stuff on the inside

there let's focus on the fight I want to close and ask you this your dad's been such a supporter your trainer your cheerleader we mentioned he'll get you in some ish because he believes in you that much. Outside of the strategy of how you're going to beat Lomachenko, what is he telling you in these final days? What are those words of advice or motivation to get you ready for this? He knows what I'm going to be doing. He knows, and he's seen the best in me, and he's seen the worst in me. You know, that's just throughout our 18 years in this and just him seeing everything. He knows when I'm ready and he's, you know, he says, this is the best I've seen you. So just to hear that from my own father and my coach

who has seen that, you know, just the fact that I feel good on top of that and for him to tell me that, I, man, it's going to be, shoot, I don't even, I get goosebumps even talking about it. Um, we don't know what type, I don't, I don't know who's really gonna, who's gonna handle that. Especially the way I feel, man. I gotta, I use all this, man. So I'm very thankful though, don't get me wrong. I'm very thankful and grateful for these opportunities. And especially during these tough times with the pandemic, um, at least we were able to at least get 250 people and fans,

and we're usually, I think we are doing the first responders, you know, at least to give back to them. And that's the most important part, you know, and to give back to the fans. It's free, cable TV, live on ESPN. Can't wait. Saturday night, the biggest showdown of your young career, the lightweight

summit, Vasily Lomachenko and this man, Teo Fimo Lopez Jr. Best of luck, Teo. It's been a long time coming. Can't wait for the fireworks. This is just the beginning though, Brian. This is just the beginning.